http://cityoftitans.com/comment/102502#comment-102502
I don't know if anyone has mentioned this, but I hope we can have self-created titles before and after our names too--ie. Superman: The Man of Steel, Daredevil: The Man Without Fear, Blade: The Daywalker, Batman: The Dark Knight, The Invincible Iron Man, The Amazing Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk, etc. etc.
It's an established comic book genre convention, AND it adds another layer of the all-important customization of theme that is such a big part of the legacy and spirit of CoH. And it should be titles you create, not just pre-fabed ones like in CoH--let's move things forward!
I'd be ok with these being earned as accomplishments or awarded by leveling, and it should probably be limited to choosing whether you want your title before OR after your name to keep things from getting out of hand, but it'd be a really nice touch with, presumably, little work to integrate this into the game somehow, since they wouldn't be part of your global or anything.
Like Empyrean said in an old thread, it would be an interesting feature to have personalized titles, perharps one that we could call "Backstory Title" that you can make while in the Character Creation screen. As such, players would have a deeper connexion with their character. Say you make a demon character named "Beelzebub", your Backstory Title could be ''Lord of the Flies". The devs never adressed this so I was wondering if they could implement (or if they already did) a system of personalized titles.
[b]Codename :[/b] Doctor Plague
[b]Archetype :[/b] Ranger - Hunter
[b]Primary :[/b] Atrophic Blast (Diseases)
[b]Secondary :[/b] Illusion (Miasmas)
[b]Tertiary :[/b] Undecided
[b]Mastery :[/b] Eliminator
[b]Movement :[/b] Teleportation, Flight
Having personalized "backstory" titles for characters would be nice but it would also make it easy for players to type in profanity or other things that were generally offensive to everyone. Yes the Devs could use the same profanity filters they use to control player's names but with more character space it would be easier for people to type in long phrases that could slip past any automatic filter.
Obviously you could always report someone who had a "naughty" title to a GM but without adequate automated protections it could very easily become a full time job for some poor GM to police all the extra bad actors you might encourage with this.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
If it's part of the backstory, wouldn't it just be used in the bio? And if you could use custom titles what's the benefit from getting titles for badges etc if you can just type them in anyway? I suppose you could color code earned titles vs custom titles. I've seen that fairly often in other games where the rarer titles are different colors. A custom title might be small and white while "Alien Pest Control" would be pink and bold and sparkly for killing 10000 Alien Ants. And if you really just wanted the title without earning the badge you could unlock it via a stars based token though maybe take the sparkles away because to someone who earned the title legit to see it on a level 1 would be aggravating.
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Well I think Fils Du Nord was just using the word "backstory" as another word for "subtitle" or "flavor text". For instance Superman is as known as "The Man of Steel" so I think he just wanted to be able to type in something like "The Man of Steel" for his own characters.
I avoided mentioning badges just to keep things simple but being able to use them for titles was actually one of the many reasons I collected badges in CoH. In fact on my main characters I had it set up (with keybinds) to link a different badge title with every costume slot so I automatically switched titles every time I switched costumes.
I agree with your idea that they could use different colors or effects to show the difference between a "player inputed" title and one that you've earned via gameplay. That seems like a workable compromise to me.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
If there were even just one, really hard badge that allowed you to make your own title, that'd be enough for me and I'd play my fingers to the bone for it.
I guarantee every one of my alts would have that badge even though I don't particularly care about badges. I always had all of the stat-boosting accomplishments, for example.
So, maybe instead of a feature, this could be used as an incentive to play? I'd be cool with that.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
I agree with all three of you. And yes Lothic, this is what I meant by "Backstory Titles".
[b]Codename :[/b] Doctor Plague
[b]Archetype :[/b] Ranger - Hunter
[b]Primary :[/b] Atrophic Blast (Diseases)
[b]Secondary :[/b] Illusion (Miasmas)
[b]Tertiary :[/b] Undecided
[b]Mastery :[/b] Eliminator
[b]Movement :[/b] Teleportation, Flight
I remember there was a sort of 'title constructor' set in CoH, which unlocked based on level-tiers. Ah! https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Titles
I was thinking that something like that could be deployed to allow 'custom' titles, without opening up the whole 'any (dirty) word you want' issue?
Be Well!
Fireheart
Now THAT would be a good solution! And with a vast variety of choices, you might just be able to do the one you want!
[b]Codename :[/b] Doctor Plague
[b]Archetype :[/b] Ranger - Hunter
[b]Primary :[/b] Atrophic Blast (Diseases)
[b]Secondary :[/b] Illusion (Miasmas)
[b]Tertiary :[/b] Undecided
[b]Mastery :[/b] Eliminator
[b]Movement :[/b] Teleportation, Flight
I wholeheartedly agree. And I am suitably impressed with Fireheart's timely display of arcane knowledge.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
Gee, we might as well make it so that the player has to choose the name of their own character based on a series of per-determined words too. >_> And their supergroup too. We don't want them to name them anything offensive after all...
Guys, this sort of thing is what mods and the report button are for. Don't stifle creativity just because there might be a few assholes out there.
Edit: Of course that only just reminded me of 1UP.com's Sharkey's supergroup, the Circle of Jerks, who were originally called the League of Incredible Bastards before they got reported and Generic'd for it. Probably in a T-Rated game a little bit of mild profanity would be fine, honestly. Nothing too extreme, like a racist slur or an obvious attempt to shock people. But admittedly, that might be a bit hard to judge sometimes.
+1. Word.
FIGHT EVIL! (or go cause trouble so the Heroes have something to do.)
At least character/supergroup names can be (and usually are) run through automatic filters that keep a large percentage of "bad" things out of games to begin with. You couldn't run those same filters so easily on an entire title phrase field which likely would allow a greater opportunity for clever players to slip things through.
Trust me if I had MY way and could create a "perfect game" to play I'd allow players to upload all sorts of customized names, logos, costume items and so on. I personally don't get shocked/offended too easily myself over stuff like this. But we don't live in a "perfect world" and you know full well there would be a constant stream of problem cases with all sorts offensive names, logos, costume items and so on that would have to be reported to and handled by the GMs on a constant basis.
I know the simple reflexive answer is always "report it to the GMs and they'll handle everything". Well sure, that might happen here. But again we all know MWM is likely going to be a small, grassroots company for the foreseeable future and if you don't mind having whatever limited GM support we're going to have CONSTANTLY swamped by having to deal with idiots like the Circle of Jerks then let's go ahead and let that happen. Once customer service starts to break down and too many parents get too upset with their precious little Johnny/Jill Snowflake seeing too many profane/offense references then it'll only be a matter of time before someone, somewhere manages to get the game shutdown completely.
Now I'm probably the furthest thing from being an "alarmist" about these things but I am also very pragmatic and have seen other games suffer from an overflow of "silly" behavior from their respective playerbases. I simply believe that the more "control" over potential problems this game exercises the better chances it'll have in the long run. Of course in this case when I say "control" I mean keep player uploadable content to either a bare minimum or under a strict GM vetting that would allow GM oversight before any player content gets into the game.
Basically it would be far easier to be safe than to be sorry with something like this. *shrugs*
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
As long as CoTs equivalent of this "title tool" is a little more flexible from Day One. As I recall it took a long time for the CoH Devs to finally make the titles "changeable" in their tool. I actually avoided using this tool for a long time because I didn't want to have a single title "locked in" that I subsequently wanted to change. Using badges as titles ended up (at least for CoH) being a lot more flexible overall.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
That's me, I can remember tons of miscellaneous trivia, but I can't remember my home phone number. *grin*
Be Well!
Fireheart
Attacks of "arcane trivia" always remind me of this classic scene. Enjoy :)
[youtube]Qj7WyfceJ58[/youtube]
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
This entire problem, and any other censorship related problem, is relatively easy to solve.
As I said in another thread, I expect this game's potential audience to be extremely small, numbered in the tens of thousands at best. Over the past six months I have begun to wonder if MWM even needs a public server of their own. With each passing day I become more convinced that the days of MMORPGs have passed behind us. Battle Arenas and mobile games, battle arenas implemented as mobile games, and augmented reality are clearly (to my mind) the future of multiplayer gaming. Here in Japan there has not been a million seller PC-based MMORPG (or even a console-based one) in about half a decade. Mobile games are the trend here, with puzzle games leading the pack by a wide margin. The only thing that has been able to challenge the dominance of mobile puzzle games has been Pokemon GO.
I was in Akihabara a couple days ago. There were once two dozen massive department stores dedicated to gaming. Now there are only two that I could locate on the main boulevard, and the largest selection in both was for used games. Most of the old gaming stores have been taken over by cosplay stores or animation academies. A couple of them have become adult goods stores. Apparently, the only games still selling well on PC platform are dating sims. At least here in Tokyo.
This weekend is the Tokyo Game Show. If I attend on Saturday, I'll have a much better idea of where the industry is headed.
But, getting back to censorship.
Instead of worrying over how to manage a pleasant gaming experience on a public server, I think the game should ship designed right from the beginning for implementation on private servers shared among a small group of family and friends. The prevalence of anything potentially offensive should be left up to the discretion of individual server administrators. The role of MWM would be to provide a gateway to those private servers offering public access along with suitable rating/review/adult content labels. Instead of a single MMORPG managed by MWM, the distribution would be more analogous to a centralized site for web comics or blogs. More like Steam or Arc Games except focused exclusively on MWM titles, beginning with City of Titans. Each title would be issued as private server packages with the ability to open the private server up to public access but only when connected to the MWM network. Perhaps MWM could charge a subscription fee for this service paid for by the server administrators, the players, or both. MWM could also enhance their revenue stream by maintaining exclusive control over licensed products such as tee shirts, coffee mugs, mouse pads, mobile phone covers, etc.
But that's just my opinion. Others might see the industry moving in a different direction.
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http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/01/dont-look-now-but-the-pc-is-the-worlds-biggest-gaming-platform/
Some things to take from that article (if accurate):
* PC games outsell all other mediums - including Mobile.
* Free to Play MMOs generated over half of that revenue
* The future may indeed see mobile gaming surpass PC gaming in revenue (if by nothing else but pure ownership numbers of the platform), but MWM still has a very good market in which to introduce a PC-based MMO. It is not quite gloom and doom yet.
You mentioned the lack of game stores - well with digital distribution now the thing that's happening all over the place. The VAST majority of game sales are digital.
Plus Japan is....Japan. There are plenty of popular things there (or in other Asian countries like Korea) that have not caught on anywhere else. I'd be cautious about drawing a parallel between two very different cultures.
I don't own a 'smart' phone, nor do I care to pay egregious data-plan rates. I get to read more great books, because I don't have a mobile leech stuck to my brain. People who want to reach me can Call and Talk to me in person.
So, I'm just not buying the technological hipsters' line about all things going mobile.
And I'm not, at all, addressing this 'too' anyone, just responding to the 'smart' phone stimulus.
Be Well!
Fireheart
League of Legends is a battle arena
Crossfire is an FPS
Dungeon Fighter Online is an arcade-style scrolling rpg
Overwatch is a battle arena
World of Warcraft at #5 is a MMORPG, with a slowly decaying membership and concurrent user population
World of Tanks is another form of battle arena with a hint of strategy
Counterstrike is an FPS
So forth and so on. The raw data over at Superdata reinforces my position. Battle arenas and mobile battle arenas are the future of PvP gaming while more casual players are drifting into puzzle games or social media based games and away from MMORPGs. The reason they are making this transition is that many of the puzzle and social media games allow the players to move between platforms (PC to phone and back again) while preserving their progress.
Arguing that Japan is a much different market is like arguing PvP is the ultimate form of entertainment: it's entirely subjective and does not take into account a whole host of variables and consistencies between players.
Where exactly does City of Titans fit into this market? What niche out there can they target to gain anything more than a handful of players?
I remain convinced the MMORPG era is all but over. The casual MMORPG player has moved on to mobile gaming or social media gaming or a combination of the two while the hardcore MMORPG player has moved on to battle arenas or FPS games which offer battle arenas.
But again, this is just my opinion.
https://www.superdataresearch.com/us-digital-games-market/?mc_cid=7ebaa0e28f&mc_eid=f99cf46f15
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My author page at Amazon: https://amzn.to/2MPvkRX
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Yeah - PC gaming worth 32 billion and rising. Over half of that MMOs with Micros and DLC. What is WMW thinking in wanting to get a piece of that pie?
This isn't a zero-sum game. Some people only play on one platform, some people play multiple games on multiple platforms. Rising sales in mobile games does not automatically mean the death of PC gaming. In fact it could get more people involved in gaming and looking for other, deeper games.
Maybe MWM could find a way to port some aspects of the game over to the mobile platform? I'd love to have the avatar builder on a tablet - that would be neat. But PC gaming isn't going anywhere for a while yet my friend, despite what many "experts" have been saying for the last couple decades.
You must not have heard about Final Fantasy XIV. It is perhaps the largest MMORPG in the world right now, and in Japan alone players have played over 1.6 Billion with a B hours (as of the 2015 census). That number does not include North America and Europe.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
It may certainly be worth discussing whether there's even a future in centralized PC-based MMORPGs or not. But as long as a game like CoT has a "public server" run by a public company like MWM it's going to have to be mindful of maintaining an environment relatively free of overtly offensive material. It's just the burden of doing business in a public arena.
Interestingly enough the Devs of CoT have already spoken of their intentions of having "private servers" for CoT. One of their goals is to make CoT self-contained enough that individual players would be able to establish their own servers with their own private circle of players doing their own thing. In that scenario one could easily see things evolve to small groups having their own "house rules" when it comes censorship and the like. If everyone involved agrees that certain things are "OK" then it's very possible that certain pockets of private CoT servers will allow for all sorts of things that would never be possible on a traditional "public" MMORPG server.
I suppose time will tell how this all plays out.
P.S. I've been to Akihabara 4 or 5 times in the last 10 years or so and it's true how the overall mix of businesses have evolved in that time. It's still a very cool place to go but somehow it seems "diminished" from what it was before.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
No one is looking at the raw data:
https://www.superdataresearch.com/us-digital-games-market/?mc_cid=7ebaa0e28f&mc_eid=f99cf46f15
The only MMORPG in the top ten is WoW, and it has slid from number one to number five. This, especially in comparison with reports from earlier years, indicates a clear trend away from MMORPG gaming. "Why" this is happening is very debatable. The reasons are related to both the attitudes of game designers, the platforms available to players, and the deterioration of the MMORPG as the premier social platform available online, and plain old demographics (declining birth rates creating an aging population median). Regardless of "why", the trend is very clear and is accelerating.
"PC game" does not necessarily mean "MMORPG". PC games as a category can increase exponentially while MMORPG participation and profitability declines to zero. That is the key issue. MMORPG participation and profitability has declined dramatically over the past five years and continues to decline. Even EVE Online, which at one time was the largest, most active MMORPG community in history, has experienced dramatic losses in both players and revenue.
Introducing a superhero MMORPG into this market with the expectation of magically reversing this trend and making a small fortune is not a realistic plan. In order for the game to last beyond its first year, some changes to the market model are going to have to be considered. What those changes will be is entirely up to the team at MWM. My personal suggestion would be forgoing the expense of a public server altogether by creating a gateway of their own similar to Steam, ARC, and all the others. If they can come up with an innovative catalog and an attractive overall theme, then they can establish themselves as a profitable venture capable of sustaining their small group of developers into the foreseeable future. CoT, especially if offered as a selection of private servers differing slightly in character and content, could be a solid foundation for a gateway style online business that is both unique and attractive enough to pull in new players and entice players away from other games.
Over time, by adding a mobile platform to their gateway, they can extend this business model even further.
One interesting possibility would be if every game available through their gateway used the same character creation software, thus enabling a character to shift effortlessly between each of the games offered by the gateway. I'm not suggesting or demanding this functionality, I'm just offering it up as an outside the box idea. If implemented well, players could move between games at will and their character could travel from game world to game world without loss of features or progress, thus removing one of the major obstacles discouraging players from experimenting with a new game.
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Can we please stop with the doomsaying already? We get it, MMOs are dead, whatever. Stop derailing other people's topics with your moaning and get out if you don't have anything to contribute.
Well there's your first mistake (yes, YOURS).
The purpose of creating this game isn't to make bank and rake in the cash hand over fist.
The purpose of creating this game is to [b]give us back the HOME that we LOST[/b] when NC$OFT callously destroyed our home for a quick buck (or less terrible quarterly statement, whichever way you prefer to look at it).
There's a difference between "operating in the black" and a Get Rich Quick Scheme™.
We're more interested in the former than in the latter. The ... wealth ... that MWM intends to generate isn't in the $$ flowing into their accounts, but rather the strength and goodwill of the community that they can bring together and provide a home to. Do the latter and the former will take care of itself (and all that).
In order for the game to last beyond its first year, some changes to the market model are going to have to be considered. What those changes will be is entirely up to the team at MWM. My personal suggestion would be forgoing the expense of a public server altogether by creating a gateway of their own similar to Steam, ARC, and all the others. If they can come up with an innovative catalog and an attractive overall theme, then they can establish themselves as a profitable venture capable of sustaining their small group of developers into the foreseeable future. CoT, especially if offered as a selection of private servers differing slightly in character and content, could be a solid foundation for a gateway style online business that is both unique and attractive enough to pull in new players and entice players away from other games.
Over time, by adding a mobile platform to their gateway, they can extend this business model even further.
One interesting possibility would be if every game available through their gateway used the same character creation software, thus enabling a character to shift effortlessly between each of the games offered by the gateway. I'm not suggesting or demanding this functionality, I'm just offering it up as an outside the box idea. If implemented well, players could move between games at will and their character could travel from game world to game world without loss of features or progress, thus removing one of the major obstacles discouraging players from experimenting with a new game.[/quote]
[center][img=44x100]https://i.imgur.com/sMUQ928.gif[/img]
[i]Verbogeny is one of many pleasurettes afforded a creatific thinkerizer.[/i][/center]
But that severely limits the experimentation and differentiation potential that they can bring to any other potential games since personal aesthetics, powers and power structure has to be identical between all those games. It would limit the types of settings they could use in the games since, f.i, having to redo my entire costume would not be "effortless" imo.
If we extend progress to including the characters progress through the game as a whole, which includes quests and such, then it's even more restrictive. Effectively speaking, all they would be able to change is the visuals, "extra capabilities" (like UGC) and the lore of the game world itself, which I believe will not make it that exiting in the long run.
However, what you are in aggregate suggesting is that MWM effectively do something they see as a "[i]bad thing[/i]", having several separated servers with varying populations. The biggest thing against it is that there is no guaranty on the longevity of each individual server thus people can find themselves with their chosen server "removed", together with their progress, one day with no real requirement of notifying the players. Then there's the uptime issues so the population will most likely concentrate on a few servers, add in revenue sharing and I'm not so sure that MWM will actually come out ahead compared to running their own.
The biggest thing here though is that I don't think MWM should be even thinking about making any other game until they have more than enough revenue to spare for such projects. That is one of thing I see in some studios today, going for quantity instead of quality, and do not want to see it in MWM.
You guys should start a new topic. This has nothing to do with titles.
[b]Codename :[/b] Doctor Plague
[b]Archetype :[/b] Ranger - Hunter
[b]Primary :[/b] Atrophic Blast (Diseases)
[b]Secondary :[/b] Illusion (Miasmas)
[b]Tertiary :[/b] Undecided
[b]Mastery :[/b] Eliminator
[b]Movement :[/b] Teleportation, Flight